New York, U.S.A. — The New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-NY) called on state and federal law enforcement authorities to investigate uncooked bacon scattered at the site of a planned prayer in Staten Island marking the end of the month-long fast of Ramadan as a possible hate crime.

CAIR-NY also asked political candidates seeking office in the November elections to stop promoting and exploiting anti-Muslim prejudice and urged all elected officials to repudiate growing anti-Muslim hate.

According to the organizers of the Sunday prayer service, the bacon was apparently used to desecrate the prayer site at Staten Island’s New Dorp Beach park. They discovered the bacon Sunday morning as they arrived at the site. (Muslims are prohibited from eating pork products and anti-Muslim bigots often use the animal as a means to taunt or offend Muslims, such as in a similar incident recently targeting a California mosque.)

The planned site for the prayer service was made public in local news media the night before.

Comments on a Staten Island Advance online article covering the Muslim holiday, by a person identified as “midland007,” stated: (Spelling and grammatical errors maintained.)

“I am going to walk my pet pig and i am gonna let him take a nice fat dump in the field ….just in time for morning prayers (:” And: “They should send in a assault team and rid Staten island of all the muslim terrorists”

The Muslim community in America celebrated the end of Ramadan with communal Eid ul-Fitr prayers around the country on Sunday 19th. Ramadan is the month on the Islamic lunar calendar during which Muslims abstain from food, drink and other pleasures from sunrise to sunset.

On Friday, CAIR said that in light of recent hate incidents targeting American Muslims, it was asking mosques and Islamic institutions nationwide to step up security for the end-of-Ramadan prayers. In its advisory, CAIR noted that in the past few days alone, hate incidents in Illinois included desecration of Muslim graves, a shooting at a mosque in Morton Grove and an acid bomb thrown at an Islamic school in Lombard.

In other states, a mosque was burned to the ground in Joplin, Mo., vandals sprayed an Oklahoma mosque with paintballs, pigs legs were thrown at a mosque-site in California, and a firebomb was thrown at a Muslim family’s home in Panama City, Fla.

“These incidents are not a coincidence. We believe the recent surge in acts of bigotry and hatred is directly linked to the words of elected officials and those running for office who have used anti-Muslim bigotry as a campaign strategy,” said CAIR-NY Executive Director Muneer Awad.

He said Rep. Bob Turner, New York State Senator David Storobin and Assembly candidate Ben Askelrod, among others, have expressed public opposition to Muslim houses of worship being built in New York.

Image Courtesy of  aclu.socal

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Washington, U.S.A — The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have welcomed a decision by the U.S. military to stop using a target depicting a Muslim woman wearing a religious head scarf (hijab) and verses from the Quran to train Navy SEALs at the new close quarters combat range at Joint Base Fort Story in Virginia Beach, Va.

The Navy made that announcement after the Washington-based Muslim civil rights organization sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Friday asking that the target and the religious text be removed from the training facility, referred to as a “kill house.”

Lt. David Lloyd, a spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Group 2, told the Virginian-Pilot: “We have removed this particular target and Arabic writing in question from the range in the near term, and will explore other options for future training.”

“We welcome the Navy’s prompt action to address community concerns and hope this incident serves as a reminder that credible scholars and experts need to be consulted when designing training materials relating to Islam and Muslims for our nation’s military personnel,” said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. “This is a welcome first step, but a serious and comprehensive review is needed to deal with the issue of Islamophobia in military training.”

Awad noted that CAIR recently called on the Department of Defense to dismiss an instructor at the nearby Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va., who taught fellow officers that only a “total war” on Islam would protect America, that they should use “Hiroshima” tactics, target civilian populations, and abandon the Geneva Conventions.

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The producers of The Third Jihad: Radical Islam’s Vision for America have a direct response to media outlets that have referred to the critically-acclaimed documentary as an “anti-Islam” or “hateful” film.

“Claims that The Third Jihad is an anti-Islam film are ignorant and misinformed,” says Raphael Shore, Producer of The Third Jihad. “These claims are meant simply to defame the filmmakers and prevent the public from judging the film for themselves.”

The film opens with the following frame in bold letters for all viewers to read: “This is not a film about Islam. It is about the threat of radical Islam. Only a small percentage of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims are radical.” The film’s message urges the Muslim community to look within itself to root out the indoctrination that affects a minority of Muslims.

Narrator Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

“The New York Times and other media outlets are conveniently choosing to overlook the fact that the film isolates a small sector of the Muslim community, and more importantly that the film is narrated by Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, the founder and president of the American-Islamic Forum for Democracy [http://www.aifdemocracy.org ],” Shore added.

Dr. Jasser is a devout Muslim and a full-time physician and has served the United States of America admirably as medical officer in the US Navy and as an attending physician to the US Congress.

The documentary is founded on credible evidence presented by the FBI of a ‘Manifesto’ published by radicals calling for the implementation of extremist ideology-both violent and politicized-within the United States.

Yet the media are blasting the film’s usage by the New York Police Department in their counterterrorism training.

“There is a very good reason the NYPD selected to show The Third Jihad to nearly 1,500 police officers, and other law enforcement agencies have done the same,” Shore said. “The film deals with the very real process of radicalization and indoctrination of anti-American ideology taking place in some sectors of the Muslim community today.”

While many media outlets are presently taking a noticeably negative stance – before even watching the film – the film has been spotlighted in over 100 interviews since its release in 2009.

The film’s narrator, Zuhdi Jasser, has consistently appeared in mainstream media outlets including MSNBC, CNN and Fox News, and has published Op-Eds in numerous mainstream publications including the Wall Street Journal to point out concerning trends within the Muslim community.

Experts

Jasser is not the only credible expert to appear in The Third Jihad, nor is NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

The film’s producers conducted exclusive interviews with:

-Former Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge,

- Former Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey

- Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani

- Former Associate Director of the FBI

- Former FBI Asst. Dir. of Public Affairs John Miller

- Senator Joseph Lieberman

- Professor Bernard Lewis

- New York Times Best-selling Author Ayaan Hirsi Ali

- Former CIA Officer Clare Lopez

- Former CIA Officer Wayne Simmons

- New York Times Best-selling Author Mark Steyn

- And more (http://tinyurl.com/about3J)

Screenings

Since its release in 2009, The Third Jihad has screened and continues to be screened at several hundred locations across the United States including at the Library of Congress, Museum of Tolerance, Directors’ Screen Guild, and the National Press Club.

The film previously aired on cable television’s AmericanLife TV Network, and is currently available on Netflix and Amazon OnDemand.

Praise

The film has also received notable praise from some of the nation’s leading policy makers.

“It is imperative that The Third Jihad reaches a mass audience in the U.S. so that the urgency of this threat becomes clear to the American public,” declared US Rep. Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Chairwoman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (AZ) said, “The Third Jihad alerts Americans to the dangers of Islamic radicalization in our own communities. Zuhdi Jasser is sounding the alarm before it is too late.”

Rudy Giuliani called the film, “a wake up call for America.”

“Those that have blasted the film are attempting to stifle an important debate about the internal state of the Muslim community in America, and whether politicized Islam and indoctrination pose tangible security threats,” Shore added.

“We hope that the general public will consider the sensitive content in the film, and will not simply accept the baseless innuendos being made in the media. We invite the general public to watch and judge the documentary for themselves.”

The Third Jihad is now available for free viewing online at http://www.thethirdjihad.com.

Image Courtesy of  https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Third-Jihad-Movie/55200400800

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called on Mayor Richard Meehan of Ocean City, Md., to reconsider his speaking invitation to retired Lieutenant General William G. “Jerry” Boykin, who believes that “[Islam] should not be protected under the First Amendment” and that there should be “no mosques in America.” Boykin is scheduled to speak at the Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast on January 26.

In a letter he emailed to Mayor Meehan, CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper wrote in part:

“We question the appropriateness of this choice for an official event, given Boykin’s long, shameful history of extreme and bigoted views. . . It will be a discredit to your office and a disservice to the citizens of Ocean City if such a man is allowed to spread his divisive falsehoods and prejudiced ideas at a government-sponsored function.

“We respectfully ask whether any taxpayer funds are being spent on this year’s Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, and how your office plans to address the appearance of an official endorsement of Boykin’s extremist views. We ask that you reconsider inviting him, given that the biased ideas he espouses — though protected by the First Amendment — should be repudiated, not given a legitimizing platform.”

Boykin’s views came under scrutiny in 2003 when media reports revealed that in a public discussion of his efforts to capture a Muslim Somali warlord, Boykin said: “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.” Speaking in uniform, the general said America’s “spiritual enemy. . .will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus.”

Since then, Boykin has continued to openly attack Islam and portray Muslims as a “threat,” even stating that there can be no interfaith dialogue or cooperation between Muslims and Christians. In September 2011, Boykin declared on the radio show Focal Point that there should be “no mosques in America.”

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A prominent national Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization calls on the FBI to investigate a number of threats of violence targeting mosques posted online on an anti-Islam hate site, including the comment “I want [Muslim] blood on my hands” by an individual who claims he regularly drives past a Virginia mosque.

The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) also urged WordPress.com to remove the hate site because its calls to violence violate the hosting company’s terms of service,” which prohibit blogs that “contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities.”

At CAIR’s request, WordPress.com last year deleted a similar blog containing posts that advocated burning mosques, making false bomb threats implicating Muslims, desecrating Muslim graves, and that recommended the “proper way to shoot a muslim [sic].” CAIR said articles and comments posted on the anonymous blog “Bare Naked Islam” (BNI) routinely urge attacks on and desecration of American and European mosques.

“Keith Mahone (aka Charles Martel),” who states that he regularly drives by a Virginia mosque, wrote: “[I]f you see a Muslim licking an ice cream cone in the park and you blow his head off you are technically committing an act of self defense. . .Muslims must learn they they are not safe anywhere outside a Muslim country. . .My heart does a back flip to see a mosque “desecrated”. . .Burn every mosque to the ground in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and kill every Muslim twice. . .I want their blood on my hands as a matter of principle.”

In a November 23 post headlined “Ready the Pigs’ Blood,” the blog’s author and commenters on the article urged violence and religious desecration to prevent the construction of a New York mosque. BNI’s author wrote: “The mosque may go up, but it will never stay up.”

Commenter “angel” wrote: “I hope the tough Russians will burn this mosque to the ground many times over until the a**lifters get the message.” ”Sarastro” wrote: “Ban all mosques, blow up those that exist, and do not let another inch of sacred American soil be designated to be desecrated by Islamic buildings. Let’s hope the Russian Mafia will find the right remedy for this outrage.”

“Carl Tapp” wrote: “Bay people must contaminate the ground, buildings, and Muslims with the blood, urine and guts of pigs.” ”Kenneth Schustereit” commented, “Fill this hole with pig’s blood!” while “perry” wrote: “a lil pigs blood applied here and there.” In reply to these threats “barenakedislam” suggested: “Perry, pouring [pig blood] in the cement would be better.

They couldn’t wash it away.” The blog’s author later wrote: “I sincerely doubt that mosque will ever get to the point where they are blaring the Call to Prayer at 5AM. Mr. BNI has a Russian Jewish business associate from that neighborhood. He will know what they are going to do but I doubt if he will tell us. Probably better that way.”

Another BNI November 23 post headlined “WOO HOO! Yet ANOTHER anti-Muslim attack on a French mosque” asks, “Will the Muslims ever get a clue that they are not welcome in France?” A comment to that post by “Sarastro” stated: “What’s all this pussy-footing??? Throw 10 Molotov cocktails into these mosques and burn them down even with a**-lifters in them, especially with a**-lifters in them.”

“GrouchyFogie” wrote: “Bomb the things to the ground, THEN burn them.” ”Burnerjack” wrote: “THAT’S not an attack. An attack is boarding the doors while the mosque is full and then fire bombing it. THAT’S an attack. I’m just saying.”

“Calls to violence and desecration targeting an American religious minority should never be tolerated and must be investigated by the FBI and other relevant law enforcement authorities,” said CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper. “Too many American mosques have already been targeted by those who share the extremist views expressed on this hate site.”

He noted that in the past year, mosques or mosque construction sites in Massachusetts, Oregon, Ohio,New York, Iowa, Maine, Georgia, Missouri, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas, California, and Michigan have been targeted by arson, vandalism or threats. In May of last year, a bomb exploded at a Florida mosque. A recent fire at a Kansas mosque is still under investigation.

Hooper said a number of recent reports have documented the growth and promotion of Islamophobia nationwide.

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